


Send them all to hell (and back)

by notveryhandy



Series: Whoops you died! [10]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Not, SO SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notveryhandy/pseuds/notveryhandy
Summary: Nobody is entirely sure how the small man with the terrible fashion sense - and fromDistrict Twelve, no less - won the Hunger Games, until they meet him.Nobody is entirely sure how one trigger-happy child started a rebellion which ripped the world apart, but that’s a different question.
Relationships: Seventh Doctor & Ace McShane, The Doctor/The Master
Series: Whoops you died! [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712161
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

Nobody is entirely sure how the Doctor, a mysterious and short man from the smallest, most defenceless village won one of the most brutal and destructive Hunger Games won.

Until they meet him.

Nobody is entirely sure how Ace McShane started a violent rebellion that ripped the world apart, but don’t question the Victors.

Even if they’re dead and buried.

* * *

She’s the Girl on Fire, or so the media likes to call her. Well, it’s more like Girl Who Blows Shit Up, but the media don’t want to hear about that. Oh, to be that young again. To be so young that adoration and fascination is fun, and not so terrifying you can hardly breathe.

They call her the Girl on Fire, watch her glare and not smile for the camera, call her a rebellious spirit.

And oh, how horrifically _right_ they are. The Doctor flinches at the word rebellion, because that means broken bodies and dying families and - of course - the Hunger Games. Ace does not remember a time before the Hunger Games, but all those who do would be horrified.

Ace McShane stares at Caesar and threatens to blow his face off, and nobody thinks that maybe she might have meant it.

* * *

There are many people who would sacrifice their lives to save their family. Not for the Girl on Fire. She stands up and gives up her life for a total stranger, risks everything to save an innocent, and not one person bats an eyelid.

Nobody cares for the crazy girl next door, who never had anyone to begin with, and probably never will. She must think she can show the Capitol up, with a display of bombs and defensive insults.

Well, she can’t. The Doctor shudders at the thought of this girl dying, even though they have barely met, because it has been twenty-five years and he still cannot wipe the blood off his hands, nor unsee all his dead tributes.

There are prices to pay in this awful world, but one more child will not be one of them.

* * *

The children of the Capitol are almost always self-centred, arrogant, and so naïve it’s painful. Not the Master, the only Gamemaker who ever thought to challenge that. Oh, but it doesn’t make a difference; those who try are punished, harshly.

Two boys sat in the dead of night, a servant and a tribute, and so a pact was born. Nobody bar the two of them ever knew how the Doctor survived the Hunger Games, but oh, if they did they would be shocked.

President Snow was disgusted by this betrayal, and the Master would be yet another death if not for swearing to help the Hunger Games.

The Doctor was revolted, and so they have not spoken since.

* * *

Here she is: standing in the Arena, running from cheetah mutts, and there is a boy at her heels. She freezes on that summit, pushes him into their jaws, and for a second there is horror.

Then she is running, and she has never run far enough.

The Doctor sends her gifts and hints, and even against twenty-two different competitors - and the Master - a Mentor called the Doctor, and a trigger-happy teenager are enough to keep her alive.

* * *

This is the seventy-fourth Hunger Games. There will be one more, but somehow, it does not take much to start a rebellion, does it? The Doctor sees the lit match that is Ace McShane, and knows she is going to tear the world apart.

So does the Master, and he does everything in his power to stop that. He even goes as far as to sneak up on the Doctor, holding an old friend at gunpoint.

And fails. No, the Doctor will live; a world without that sneaky, manipulative bastard would be boring.

At least, that’s what he tells himself, and stays up far too long wondering why he would kill a child but not a monster.

* * *

Ace is, by the end, half-starved and wild and sobbing. She will not kill one more; the last one lives.

It’s desperate, an act powered only by her complete brokenness, death upon death piled upon her. But then the Doctor’s voice is in her ear, and the Master is on loudspeaker, threatening to shoot her dead, and she does what she must.

She makes it quick, and whispers endless offers of forgiveness as the hovercraft comes to lift her up.

* * *

Girl on Fire, World on Fire. President Rassilon is furious, breathing down her ear and threatening the loss of everything she loves.

There is so little beauty left in the world now, and she spits right in his face. “No.”

Cold, hard refusal. She will never do as he says; that would be a complete ruining of her moral code, that would break her for good. There are some lines that are never to be crossed.

“I have no weaknesses.”

The next day, she finds a note on the wall telling her the Doctor has been captured, and she gives in.

* * *

The lies are _easy,_ and so is just doing what they say. She speaks boldly of the Capitol, and the President smiles; the Doctor shifts awkwardly in his seat, only questioning in the spaces in between.

It would not do to get her killed on a whim, so he watches on as Ace is sculpted into the perfect, model Victor. Everything hr’ll never be, he supposes.

The Master catches on quickly, and though he hides it, his fear and recognition in that moment, his sheer _revulsion,_ makes the Doctor certain the boy on the rooftop is still there.

“Leave her alone,” he begs the Master, and although he never should be able to, he understands perfectly.

* * *

The seventh-fifth Hunger Games leaves Ace feeling sick and the Doctor staring in horror. There is only one other Victor known to District Twelve: John Smith, and everyone knows they will not win without the Doctor as a mentor.

The seventy-fifth Hunger Games is quick, and brutal, and Ace wonders if there was ever an intended Victor. She runs and dodges and hides, and when John offers himself up as an ally she nods, firmly, silently.

“Yes.” It’s a deal, but one of them will die, and as self-centred as it is she does not want that to be her. So when the time comes, she knocks the young man out, leaves him lying on the floor with his blue eyes wide open, and blows them all to hell.

* * *

She had not counted for the Doctor and the Master being there. It is an act of suicide, and murder, but not of her _friend._ Or the Gamemaker.

Ace sees everything burn and a strangely familiar man running towards her, knowing that if she stays there she will die. Ace sees the Doctor, tied to a tree, presumably by the Master. Ace sees death descending on the arena, and then Ace does not see anything at all.

* * *

The young man is swept aside, for hospital. There are two bodies underneath the tree, and a figure mourning both. The older one, the Gamemaker, splayed out on the ground, a saviour but certainly never a hero. And the girl, the Victor.

The Doctor is never seen again, and nor is the Master. There is no trace of where the arena was; nobody left it alive, besides one man who was an amnesiac. But as the cameras pan out from the most disastrous Game ever seen, all the viewers catch a flash of a child’s body held close to a mentor’s chest, crying for once.

Nothing like this has happened before, and nor will it happen again.

* * *

Ace McShane is a martyr, and John Smith an unwilling survivor. He drags himself through District Thirteen’s constant questions and begging for help, because there is no way he is helping the people who stood by as a child died.

Ace McShane is replaceable, apparently; you need only point at the nearest Victor, hand them a weapon, and call yourself the victim. Then they will go to war for you, and lay down their lives in the name of _good._

John Smith does not agree, and so he is beaten, tortured, and hijacked until he agrees, unconditionally.

* * *

It is still not him who ends the war. The solution, everyone insists, is nuclear bombs.

And so be it. They call the Ender of War so many names, but the worst by far is the War Doctor. A mocking parody of the Doctor himself, the Man Who Burnt A Thousand Lives. That is not the _Doctor_ , no matter how long everybody lies.

Ace McShane can be forgotten when you have a nuclear arsenal. The Doctor can be ignored if you lie long enough. Propaganda will erase any trace that the Capitol might be capable of _good_ \- even Rassilon would rather forget the Master.

And the ends justify the means, because who is going to question John Smith changing from kind-hearted and terrified to cruel and cold and willing to go along with utter annihilation?

Not the War Doctor, who sits back and watches the world tear apart, who lets the nuclear bombs go off.

And certainly not Rassilon, who watches his impending doom and smirks.

* * *

Of all the casualties of this war, the most important is Ace McShane. After the nuclear armageddon, the first word anyone speaks is _Girl on Fire._

Looks like her name was accurate, after all, because she set the world alight with nothing but a stupid, pointless sacrifice. Nothing in this war is anything but a stupid, pointless sacrifice; any old fool could tell you that.

No old fool does, because they are all buried in a pile of radioactive rubble or locked up deep down in District Thirteen, awaiting execution.

The Girl on Fire burnt herself out, but she sparked long enough to light up the world.


	2. It’s happening (again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilfred Noble stands in his home and cries.

Wilf isn’t crying. He isn’t. No, he’s just got some very inconvenient dirt in his eye.

It’s happening again. “Donna,” he croaks out, “do you see-”

No, of course she doesn’t. She only sees a nasty idea, not a horrifying and disgusting reality.

District Thirteen, monsters like you’d never believe.

* * *

Wilf has to leave the room. They wouldn’t. They really, really...

Wouldn’t. The last time this happened, the world burnt and ripped and he is still not over that, not really. He looks at the blank walls and thinks blank thoughts and puts all thoughts f the war out of his mind.

Puts the Capitol out of his mind.

And then he remembers all the innocents, and Donna’s father, and fighting, and yes.

He cries.

* * *

There are too many dead, but Donna misses the point. Poor, sweet Donna. She may seem brash and rude but she’s just like (and here he breaks up, remembering what happened) the Girl on Fire.

Except she’s never really been anywhere but this nuclear wasteland, and she does not see the world through piles of trauma. Donna Noble is noble indeed, even if there’s no one to see it, or say it, or cry it.

There will be no more loss, if he is careful.

* * *

Donna Noble is not careful. The universe is not fair. A skinny man in a suit shows her more than she could ever hope for, and she cries too.

Nobody ever said he showed her the _good._

Wilf looks out from his doorway, and when he sees Donna smiling like that he does not have the heart to tell her it will all be over.

* * *

Pinstripes brings her home, mind wiped. She’s never been more alive, except none of that really happened.

Wilf wraps his arms around her and is glad and sad all at the same time. Donna grins into his shoulder and cannot possibly understand the turmoil of emotions running through him.

Pinstripes looks on from the doorway, and walks out before Wilf can demand any form of apology.

* * *

He feels cheated, but there is worse going on right now. The Hunger Games are forming again, and will they ever learn? No, but then he is optimist and so he looks at the clunky television and grips Donna tightly and wishes this was all a very bad dream indeed.

It’s not.

And that stings, and so does the carelessness of the universe, and everything hurts in ways Donna can barely fathom.

 _He_ can, though, and Sylvia gives him _that look_ again.

As if he’d make this up.

* * *

Donna does not see him drowning in self-loathing and anger, and when Pinstripes visits again he is blindsided by fury and a horrible shaking sadness that he cannot get out of his mind.

The blonde fool Pinstripes liked so much smirks, and everyone, it seems, is dying.

Except the ghosts of the past.

They’re already dead.

* * *

He had thought the burning was over. The Girl on Fire no more than a memory.

As expected, the memories of everything that happened are still burning a hole in his heart. When he steps out as a sacrifice, the skinny man’s shock and immediate refusal are terrifyingly predictable.

He hands the gun over. Closes his eyes. Waits for a _bang_ and a _thud_ and countless tears.

Instead there is the sound of smashing, and when he goes home again he does not sleep properly for weeks.


	3. Just a child

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One day, this hell will end.
> 
> For now, they are staring at the camera and begging that it won’t be him next.
> 
> And then the cannon goes off, and nobody can quite believe their eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: alternate idea, not exactly the same universe as the first chapter.

As is to be expected, District Twelve does not win.

District Twelve almost never wins, especially not _now._

Oh, this is the fiftieth anniversary, and what will it cost them? Double the competitors, and thus, double the chances that it will be their friend who dies.

* * *

It is, indeed. Adric.

Hearing that name in that context makes Tegan shudder. Makes her blood run cold. He may be annoying, he may be a little whiny, but that doesn’t make him any less important.

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, Tegan is quickly learning.

Even when you’ve been losing your entire life.

The Doctor drags her to the Capitol, insists it will be an adventure, and it is.

Not the kind of adventure she’s always wanted, though.

* * *

She meets all sorts of people. She is not sure she is meant to be here; she’s not a tribute, not a member of the Capitol, and the Doctor has no right to be taking her here. No right at all.

Except for Nyssa. She’s not so bad, the one highlight right now. It’s easy to put her mind off Adric - who is probably going to die - and just live.

Breathe.

Life is suffocating. She can only hope it will not strangle Adric, too.

* * *

There is an arena, and it looks beautiful. Deadly, too - but so very pretty. Idyllic, almost. The Fields of Paradise, Elysium, and Tegan tries not to think of Adric lying there, eyes unblinking, definitively and irrevocably dead.

She knows she shouldn’t be the one plagued by nightmares, feels guilt and looks around her, sees the same.

Nobody wants to admit their weakness. That would be giving in, wouldn’t it?

And if there’s anything Tegan’s learnt, it’s that you can _never_ give in.

* * *

They have been staring at the screen for the past few hours. Nobody has slept. Adric, it seems, is still alive.

She feels guilty for presuming Adric weak, but then she remembers how there’s still thirteen competitors left and he is only -

What?

She has no idea.

Yet another thing to be guilty about.

* * *

In a few weeks, at most, this will be over, and Tegan will stop biting her nails until they’re raw and clinging onto Nyssa or the railings or the Doctor so hard it hurts, staring at the screen almost constantly, looking for any sign he is still alive.

And then one day, the cannon goes off, and nobody can quite believe their eyes.

* * *

Does it matter if Adric died bravely? There was no real reason for him to die, was there?

She should not be questioning this. She should be heading home and moving on with life. Those who bury their heads in the past are doomed to meet the same fate.

Except it’s only natural to grieve, and emotions over deaths in a show of entertainment being forbidden sounds sick and twisted when she steps back and looks at it.

It is far easier to go home and sit in an empty house and not question anything at all than it is to stand up and confront the truth.

* * *

Adric died in a twofold layer of games, which when she thinks about it is almost funny, in a deeply, darkly ironic way, the sort she doesn’t really believe.

She cannot help imagining them anyway, and Tegan wonders, briefly, what kind of person that makes her.

Nyssa refutes any twistedness or immorality, but the Doctor just looks at her sadly. She thinks of the shattered star badge and two booms (a cannon and a bomb) and not even seeing a body.

Remembering that dull cannon firing sets her on edge in a way she has not felt before and does not want to feel again.

When the Doctor tells her to sleep, she does so willingly, and does not think about the fact that she’s resting in a dead boy’s bed.


	4. Death in Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death in Heaven, death in Hell. Clara can hardly tell the difference these days.

To say she dislikes being a mentor is an understatement.

Clara is a teacher, she is a trainer. She does not exist to turn people into weapons and then crush them underfoot. That job goes to the Doctor.

Or so she always thought, but now she is not so sure, is she?

The little girl - well, teenager - walks in, calls herself Ashildr, and does not seem to care that she is going to die.

Clara doesn’t know what to make of that.

* * *

Clara looks at all the other tributes, and is certain that Ashildr doesn’t care, so she doesn’t really try. It feels good, forgetting everything for once. Letting go.

Ashildr, though, starts to look up at her with hope and some sort of sadness, and they’re going in opposite directions, she thinks.

Maybe they’ll crash and maybe they won’t, but she’s certain one of them won’t be around to see it.

* * *

Ashildr does well. Ashildr is fast, and clever, and strikes without hesitation. She has disguises. But Clara remembers the constant pausing when she had trained, and knows Ashildr cares.

Possibly, or maybe there’s nothing to see here and the Doctor is deluding her.

It’s always hard to tell, and it seems everyone here is a liar.

* * *

Ashildr survives - barely. She is so enraged by the events of the arena that she walks up to every last mentor and screams in their faces, hurts them, rips them to pieces. 

“You have to stop her,” says the Doctor.

“She’s not my problem now,” says Clara. The Doctor saves Ashildr, because Clara Oswald has not cared in a long time.

And she sees no need to start now.

* * *

Ashildr turns up in the dead of night, snarling and raging and threatening death. It’s nothing surprising, really; Clara does not blink.

Instead, she stifles a yawn. Leans back on the counter, casually, and mocks Ashildr. Ashildr wouldn’t do this.

Then again, five minutes ago she would not have expected Ashildr to stand in front of her with a gun.

When the shot rings out, nobody is particularly shocked.

That does not make the grief any easier,

* * *

The Doctor is furious, and Ashildr is a fool. The Doctor was naïve enough to let her in, but that will not happen again.

The Doctor is oblivious, not stupid.

Clara looks as brave in death as she did in life, except for the uncharacteristic stillness. She wanted people to learn, and they did, are, will.

The Doctor holds a gun to Ashildr’s head, and tells her she is going to learn something.

Who to cross, and who not to cross, and who to leave the hell alone.

They never learn, do they?


End file.
